June 3, 2025 • 23 mins
What do TV listings have to do with the arc of American history? Quite a lot, it turns out! From hard-hitting journalism that exposed fake news, to billion-dollar business deals, to a photo manipulation scandal that made Oprah very angry, Will and Mango uncover the many ways this little magazine has made a big impact on our lives. Thanks to Ken at TV Guidance Counselor for the inspo—and for having Mango on his podcast!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So the term fake news has been around for a
long time, but it really entered the public consciousness in
nineteen ninety two, and that is thanks to a hard
hitting article in one of America's most important and beloved
magazines Do you know which one? All? Right?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Nineteen ninety two, which in my head is much more
recent than it actually is. Like, it's hard to wrap
my head around the fact that that was like thirty six,
thirty five, thirty four years I've lost track of man
thirty three years ago, right, yeah, a lot of years.
So I'm going to go with that many years ago.
I'm going to go with was it Time or Newsweek?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You know? And that's a good guess, But it was
actually TV Guide? Oh wow, yeah, it's not stunning. So
in the February twenty second, nineteen ninety two edition, there's
a journalist named David Lieberman, and he wrote a cover
story under the headline fake News, and in it he
criticized the widespread use of something called video news releases,
or vnrs, and these were short videos made to look
(01:22):
like regular news segments, but they were produced by PR firms,
and they were sent out to all the TV news stations,
who sometimes aired them as though they were real stories. Now,
Lieberman acknowledged that the information in these vnrs could be accurate,
but he said news programs should label them so viewers
know that what they're watching isn't an independent news report,
(01:43):
just a glorified press release. The article sparked a lot
of conversation, and at first the PR industry tried to
push back, but thanks in part to TV guys journalism,
in June of nineteen ninety two, the Public Relations Service
Council formed a committee to develop better standards for disclosure
in VA and ours. And for the record, nobody paid
me to tell you that story.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm glad to share that. I do appreciate your integrity, Mango.
And speaking of news that definitely isn't fake, today we've
got eight more facts about TV Guide, the little magazine
that made a big impact on American culture. So let's
dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
(02:41):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and over there on the
booth wearing a Safari vest stuffed with remote controls. This
is one of the best I've seen from him. That's
our Palin producer, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And don't forget he's got that Safari pit helmet with
an ten on pomp as well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That is that's really impressive. So I think we all
know where he's going with this one, right, Like he's
a literal TV Guide Incredible work is always Dylan.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So will I know. This episode was my idea and
I just wanted to explain why I've been thinking about
TV Guide a lot recently. So I was just on
this super fun podcast as a guest, and it's called
TV Guidance Counselor, and basically the host Ken has people
come on and he sends you this old issue of
TV Guide, like a random old issue, and you go
(03:32):
through the week together and you pick the things you
would have watched in primetime and just discuss it. And
it is so fun, and you know, it's a great
concept for a show. But it made me realize that
TV Guide is this almost this incredible record of pop
culture and media and politics and so much more. And
also it had recipes from stars in there. Do you
(03:52):
remember those?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I definitely remember this. Of course we've talked about my
grandmother many times on this show before. I have a
strong association of TV Guide because there would always be
TV guides on her coffee table and I would try
to convince her every day to stop watching Wheel of
Fortune and it was time to try out something else.
But it never really worked. But I always loved thumbing
through those old issues ed.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
She had all the options right in front of her,
but she refused so many options. Channel. But you know,
I was looking at it and I was wondering, like,
why do you really want to eat like David Hasselhoff's
cop salad or like Suzanne Summer's vegetarian lasagna or whatever.
But then I read that the magazine editorial was basically
trying to encourage you to make these really easy and
(04:34):
quick meals that you could eat in front of the TV.
And it's kind of brilliant, right, Like everything relates back
to TV, which is so editorially smart. But you know,
I'm glad we're doing this topic, and I'm curious where
you want to.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Start, all right, So I feel like we should go
back to the very beginning like we like to do,
and that takes us to New York City and then
nineteen thirty so I know, I proved I was really
bad at math earlier, but this is almost one hundred
years ago now. A young man named Lee Wagner got
a job at a magazine publisher where he managed subscriptions
for several titles focused on movies and celebrities, and later
(05:08):
he worked for the publisher of Look, which at the
time was one of the most read magazines in the
United States. So Wagner knew the ins and outs of
publishing at the time, and he was convinced that television,
then in its infancy, was about to be the next
big thing. So he takes this leap of faith and
he launches his own magazine. It was called The Television Guide,
(05:30):
which initially just covered programming in the New York City area,
and the first issue appeared on June fourteenth, nineteen forty eight.
The cover featured the silent film star Gloria Swanson.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's kind of funny, right, Like he's embracing this new
medium by putting a silent film star on the cover.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah. I didn't actually think about that, but that is
pretty funny, Well, Gloria had seen the writing on the wall.
She was actually trying to break in the TV by
hosting a variety show called the Gloria Swanson Hour, which
was ansel just a year after that. But the magazine
that featured her ended up being a bit more successful
than that. Of course, sales increased and he was able
(06:08):
to expand the magazine, creating these regional editions for New
England and Washington, DC, really specific to those markets.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And I'm going to pick up the thread here because
i did a little research about what happens next. So
in nineteen fifty three, Walter Annenberg, whose name you might
recognize from his foundation and the University of Southern California's
journalism school, he bought the Television Guide and folded into
his company, Triangle Publications. And his story's kind of interesting.
So in the twenties he was this rich kid playboy
(06:39):
who dated movie stars and drove fast cars, and then
the stock market crash of nineteen twenty nine happens. He
basically made a bad bet and loses a lot of
his money. So his dad pulls him into his publishing
business in Philly, where he gives them kind of this
fake job, right, He's just like signing checks and doing
as little work as possible. His dad goes to jail
(07:02):
for tax evasion and Walter has to step up, and
it turns out he's actually pretty savvy. He invests in
two things. One is in a racing journal called the
Race and Form, which is for horse betting, and he
basically realizes that people are betting on horses all over
the country, and you can make this journal for them
all across the country so that they could pay attention and
(07:23):
bet on whatever races. And the other is Television Guide,
which is kind of a similar idea where he decides
to combine all these other regional TV listing magazines. So
there's one in Chicago, there's one New York, there's one
DC And as part of this change, the name got
shortened to TV Guide and the new version appears on
(07:43):
April third, nineteen fifty three, with a cover photo of
one of the years most talked about TV stars, and
that is Desi Arnez Junior, who is just two and
a half months old at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Actually, I think I've heard about this, So they wrote
luci Oball's real life pregnancy into the plot of is live.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Lucy right, Yeah, that's right, And at the time this
was really rare. It was considered bad taste to show
or even talk about pregnancy on TV, and in fact,
CBS wouldn't let Lucy use the word pregnant on TV.
She could only say she was expecting, which is so funny.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Huge difference.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
But the storyline was a huge hit, and Lucille Ball
time the episode so that the on screen birth corresponded
with their own planned c section. This is in January
of nineteen fifty three. Now, the episode where she gives
birth became the most washed TV program up to that
point in the country.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So when TV Guide relaunched, they actually wanted to lead
with the real star of the show, which was of
course the baby.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, and it was baby Dozy's first cover appearance, so
it was huge news. In fact, Lucy and Dozi Senior
had a deal to give exclusive photos to Life and
Look magazine, the two biggest magazines of the country. But
Desi Arnez Senior agreed to meet with an editor from
TV Guide and apparently the conversation went really well. Desi
(09:00):
actually had the baby photos on his desk and when
he got up to use the restroom. He told the
editor that if you know, some of those pictures were
missing when he came back, it would be okay. So
TV Guide managed to get the scoop that way, and
today the issue is a real collector's item. Mint condition
copies have sold for as much as one thousand dollars.
Of course, Annenberg, like most other magazine owners of the time,
(09:23):
had plenty of quirks. He ran his magazine like a
fiefdom and like For instance, there was one time he
was so irritated that the Phillies had scheduled a game
at the same time as one of his charity benefits
that he kept their listings out of the magazine for
a while his punishment.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And according to a book on TV Guide's history called
Changing Channels, he also had this thing against a few celebrities.
I'm not exactly sure why, but Imagene Coca, Sammy Davis Junior,
Jajrea Gabor, and Dinnah Shore were banned from the early
TV Guide pages. That is so weird.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mean, can you imagine not liking Sammy Davis Junior
Actually a few of those celebrities for the that matter.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I know, it's really bizarre, but he definitely made
a smart play with TV Guide. People thought Annenberg was
an idiot for buying a magazine that gave out the
same TV listings that you could find in your local paper.
But he believed TV would be a centerpiece of American life.
And this was back when there were only thirty percent
of homes in the country at TVs. And he wrapped
his listings in this smart editorial package and sold in
(10:23):
grocery store checkouts, and it really worked. Apparently, Annenberg and
his editors would send a guy with the schoolyard bell
through the office hallways to ring it loudly every time
the circulation rose by an extra one hundred thousand people,
and it happened so much that the bell broke in
the early years.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So funny. All right, Well, let's talk about the magazine
changing hands and how much it actually sold for, which
is three billion dollars, Like, can you believe this? That's
the price Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Paid to acquire TV
Guides publisher Triangle Publications. This was in nineteen eighty eight.
Three billion dollars. That is actually about eight billion dollars
(11:02):
in today's money. And the Triangle portfolio included other titles
like seventeen Magazine, the Daily Racing Form, but TV Guide
was the crown jewel of all of those. Back then,
it had the largest circulation of any magazine in the
United States. It was over seventeen million readers. But media
critics and network executives had concerns about the sale, though.
(11:24):
That's because Rupert Murdoch owned the Fox Network, and people
wondered if TV Guide would start favoring Fox shows in
its coverage now. It didn't help that the week after
the acquisition, a new issue of TV Guide appeared with
a cover story about Fox's show twenty one Jump Street.
But it turned out that that story had been in
the works for months. It was all above board, Mango,
(11:45):
They've been talking about this show for a while.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That's amazing. So TV Guide didn't just cover the best
of TV. It also covered the worst, and the magazine
launched the j. Fred Muggs Award to recognize each year's
silliest gaffes and gimmicks.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And so who was j Fred Muggs? Like, was he
a real person?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No, he was a real chimpanzee. Oh, of course this
is true. He was a regular on the Today Show
for several years in the nineteen fifties, and apparently it
was a desperate attempt to boost low ratings. But the
thing is it worked right like people tuned in ad
sales went up. Producers estimated that the stunt brought in
over one hundred million dollars, which is wow.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
All right? So who were some of the unlucky recipients
of the Jfred Muggs Award?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So there are a few doozies in there. In nineteen
eighty seven, CBS News anchor Dan Rather won the Quote
John McEnroe Cup for Petulance under Fire after he stormed
off because a US Open match was delaying the start
of his newscast.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So when the tennis match ended and stations switched back
to the news, there were six minutes of nothing. Isn't
that incredible?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Heraldo Rivera also won a Suckers Award for his two
hour live special The Mystery of al Capone's Faults, in
which he and a team of construction workers dug up
the basement of a Chicago hotel only to find a
few empty bottles and I kind of love this one.
In nineteen eighty six, TV Guide gave Ted Turner the
Mickey Mouse Coloring Book Award because he'd colorized famous black
(13:17):
and white movies like The Maltese Falcon.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
We love the names of these awards. Sounds well deserved.
All right, Well, Mage, I know you talked about a
nineteen ninety two fake news story at the very top here,
But it turns out TV Guide had its own fake
news scandal just a few years earlier and involved Oprah
Winfrey and a pile of money. And I'll tell you
all about it right after this break.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about
TV Guide. That's right, it's a whole episode about a
magazine of television listings. But as is so often the case,
if you look a little bit more closely, there are
some fascinating stories in there. And you know, well that's
what we love to do here, right, We dig deep
and find gems underneath the surface.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That is exactly right. And actually, if you love surprising
facts and unusual stories as much as we do, I
hope you'll subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast
app and leave us a nice rating when review It
actually really helps us out, and more importantly, it makes
Dylan very happy. Lookay, Mango, he's actually smiling.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Back there, finally smiling. Okay, well, so you left us
on a real cliffhanger before the break, fake news, Oprah Winfrey,
pile of money.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Go all right, okay, this is a good cues. All right. Well,
it was August of nineteen eighty nine and TV Guide
put Oprah on the cover. Now, the headline read Oprah
the richest woman on TV. That was question mark there
how she amassed her two hundred and fifty million dollar fortune.
So take a look at this cover, Mango, and tell
me what you see.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
On Oprah looking very glamour. She's wearing a sparkly gown
and showing a little leg and she's sitting on a
huge pile of buddy. It's eye catching. But you know,
I have to say, there's something a little off about
this image.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There is something actually very off about this image because
it's not Oprah, well not entirely Oprah. It's Oprah's head,
but the body belongs to nineteen sixties actress and dancer
and Margaret. How weird is that, Mango?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So they photoshopped her head on someone else's body.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
No, this is nineteen eighty nine. Photoshop didn't become widely
available until nineteen ninety. Someone at TV Guide had to
physically cut these images together. This is like third grade
work on our part. So the pile of money is
also fake. In the original an Margaret photo, she's sitting
on some kind of barrel or a round table. Now,
(15:50):
TV Guide might have gotten away with his trickery, except
the guy who designed an Margaret's sparkly dress saw this cover.
He recognized his whole creation, and he alerted the media.
Oprah was, of course furious. Her spokesperson released a statement
that said quote, Oprah would not pose on a pile
of money like that, nor would she pose in that
revealing address, And Margaret's publicist said she was shocked. So
(16:13):
it's a pretty wild When it was a bona fide scandal,
people took it very seriously. The La Times wrote, here,
let me find this quote. It says the incident is
by no means trivial. It should have responsible journalists and
the entire reading public steaming mad and genuinely concerned about
the media's commitment to truth.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Now.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
The piece pointed out that images have a unique ability
to convey accurate information, like how photojournalists helped show the
reality of Vietnam. And you know, as The Times concluded,
if the public has to wonder if an image is real,
it loses its power.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's so funny, right, there's something almost like quaint about
that today.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You know, not only are so many things like photoshop,
but also with AI out there. You see all these
images of people, your celebrities and them they've got like
six fingers whatever. So here's another problem. One. Did you
know TV Guide played a role in a landmark federal
fraud case. I did not, So this is true. It
had to do with these diet pills called Regimen that
(17:15):
were heavily advertised in print and on TV from nineteen
fifty nine to nineteen sixty four. Now, the ads made
all these outlandish claims that the pills would make you
lose weight without changing your diet. The company that made
them even hired women to go on programs like The
Today Show in American Bandstand to talk about how Regimen
changed their lives. But in fact, all of these women
(17:36):
had been put on unhealthy, restrictive diets, which is what
made them lose weight, not the pills. Now, the FDA
opened an investigation. Eventually, New York State brought criminal charges
against the drug company, its president, and notably the AD
agency that helped create the campaigns. The case ended up
going to a federal jury trial, and in nineteen sixty
(17:56):
five everyone involved was found guilty. And this was actually
the first time an ad agency has ever been found
guilty of fraud for promoting a client's product.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Wow, that is actually really insane. But how was TV
Guide involved?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So attorneys for the defendants challenged the decision, and one
of their main arguments was that TV Guide had prejudiced
the jury. Shortly before the trial's conclusion, the magazine ran
a big article about the case under the headline quote
the diet pill Fraud All America Watched. It was actually
an excerpt of a forthcoming book about the weight loss industry,
and it was written by this journalist, Peter Widen, and
(18:32):
one of Widen's sources was Martin Pollner, the assistant US
attorney who prosecuted the regiment case. But the courts denied
the appeal, and that decision was careful to note that
TV Guide was not responsible for the outcome of the trial. Apparently,
jurors had followed instructions not to follow any media about
the case while it was pending. And besides, Wyden's article
relied on information that had already been made public at
(18:54):
that time. But it just goes to show that TV
guide has popped up in almost every corner of American
life over all these years.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That's really true. And actually, here's another example. So in
the nineteen eighties, teachers were encouraged to use TV Guide
in the classroom. So I found this article in an instructor
magazine that actually laid out the whole lesson plan. Teachers
were supposed to ask the kids to bring in copies
of TV Guide and use it to teach them the
hour minute format of writing time, you know, and the
(19:23):
difference between AM and PM. Of course, so after the
kids mastered that, the next step was to learn how
to read and interpret TV listings. Sample lesson questions included
and likes to watch Hollywood Squares on Thursday night. What
time does it start? And here's another one, Jan likes
to watch The Brady Bunch each weeknight at six thirty pm.
(19:44):
What channel does she watch?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's so tricky, but I got to make sense by
the times, you know, Obviously, times have changed since then,
and TV Guide has changed too, So for the first
fifty two years of its life, the magazine was digestized
about the size of the paperback book, but in two
thousand and five it switched to a larger, more standard
magazine format and reduced the amount of listings in order
(20:07):
to make room for more celebrity news. So previously the
ratio had been about seventy five percent listings twenty five
percent other stories, but with the format change, that ratio
got inverted. But perhaps the biggest change was the elimination
of the Guide's one hundred and forty regional editions. Instead,
it shranked to just one national edition with schedules marked
in either Eastern or Pacific time. Parent company Gemstars so
(20:31):
I did declining readership and ad sales, but at its
peak in the nineteen seventies, TV Guides circulation was around
twenty million, which is just unfathomable to me, especially you
and me as as people who used to run a magazine.
But by two thousand and four it dropped to nine million,
And in the past couple decades there's been a whole
maze of corporate sales, acquisitions, spin offs, and so on.
(20:53):
It would actually take a long time to go through
all of them. But since I know you're wondering, here's
where things stand today. TV Guides still exists. Its website,
additional properties are owned by the fan engagement platform Fandom,
and the print magazine is owned by a Michigan based
publisher called NTVD Media. That is wild.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I'm just thinking back about that staff that you said
that there were one hundred and forty regional editions at
one point. That was pretty wild. But you know, even
though we're up to our eyeballs and premium channels and
streaming services and of course video on demand, you can
still pick up a print copy of TV Guide. There's
something nice about the.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Child and maybe all those things you sid died are
the reason you should because, as the twenty twenty four
TV Guide Media Kit puts it, quote, there's more TV
than ever, so there's never been more of a need
for guidance.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I mean, they're not wrong. If mammal are still around,
I'm pretty sure there'd be one on our coffee table.
But you know mego for that and the fact that
this whole episode was your idea, I'm going to give
you today's Trophy. Congrats.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, I'm so honored and thanks to TV Guidance Council
for the inspiration and for having me on the show.
We will be back next week with a brand new episode,
but in the meantime, please be sure to follow us
on Instagram at part Time Genius and from Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Will and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part
(22:26):
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me mongas Heartikuler
and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
episode was engineered and produced by the Wonderful of Dylan
Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with
(22:49):
social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Us, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So the term fake news has been around for a
long time, but it really entered the public consciousness in
nineteen ninety two, and that is thanks to a hard
hitting article in one of America's most important and beloved
magazines Do you know which one? All? Right?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Nineteen ninety two, which in my head is much more
recent than it actually is. Like, it's hard to wrap
my head around the fact that that was like thirty six,
thirty five, thirty four years I've lost track of man
thirty three years ago, right, yeah, a lot of years.
So I'm going to go with that many years ago.
I'm going to go with was it Time or Newsweek?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You know? And that's a good guess, But it was
actually TV Guide? Oh wow, yeah, it's not stunning. So
in the February twenty second, nineteen ninety two edition, there's
a journalist named David Lieberman, and he wrote a cover
story under the headline fake News, and in it he
criticized the widespread use of something called video news releases,
or vnrs, and these were short videos made to look
(01:22):
like regular news segments, but they were produced by PR firms,
and they were sent out to all the TV news stations,
who sometimes aired them as though they were real stories. Now,
Lieberman acknowledged that the information in these vnrs could be accurate,
but he said news programs should label them so viewers
know that what they're watching isn't an independent news report,
(01:43):
just a glorified press release. The article sparked a lot
of conversation, and at first the PR industry tried to
push back, but thanks in part to TV guys journalism,
in June of nineteen ninety two, the Public Relations Service
Council formed a committee to develop better standards for disclosure
in VA and ours. And for the record, nobody paid
me to tell you that story.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm glad to share that. I do appreciate your integrity, Mango.
And speaking of news that definitely isn't fake, today we've
got eight more facts about TV Guide, the little magazine
that made a big impact on American culture. So let's
dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
(02:41):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and over there on the
booth wearing a Safari vest stuffed with remote controls. This
is one of the best I've seen from him. That's
our Palin producer, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
And don't forget he's got that Safari pit helmet with
an ten on pomp as well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That is that's really impressive. So I think we all
know where he's going with this one, right, Like he's
a literal TV Guide Incredible work is always Dylan.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So will I know. This episode was my idea and
I just wanted to explain why I've been thinking about
TV Guide a lot recently. So I was just on
this super fun podcast as a guest, and it's called
TV Guidance Counselor, and basically the host Ken has people
come on and he sends you this old issue of
TV Guide, like a random old issue, and you go
(03:32):
through the week together and you pick the things you
would have watched in primetime and just discuss it. And
it is so fun, and you know, it's a great
concept for a show. But it made me realize that
TV Guide is this almost this incredible record of pop
culture and media and politics and so much more. And
also it had recipes from stars in there. Do you
(03:52):
remember those?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I definitely remember this. Of course we've talked about my
grandmother many times on this show before. I have a
strong association of TV Guide because there would always be
TV guides on her coffee table and I would try
to convince her every day to stop watching Wheel of
Fortune and it was time to try out something else.
But it never really worked. But I always loved thumbing
through those old issues ed.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
She had all the options right in front of her,
but she refused so many options. Channel. But you know,
I was looking at it and I was wondering, like,
why do you really want to eat like David Hasselhoff's
cop salad or like Suzanne Summer's vegetarian lasagna or whatever.
But then I read that the magazine editorial was basically
trying to encourage you to make these really easy and
(04:34):
quick meals that you could eat in front of the TV.
And it's kind of brilliant, right, Like everything relates back
to TV, which is so editorially smart. But you know,
I'm glad we're doing this topic, and I'm curious where
you want to.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Start, all right, So I feel like we should go
back to the very beginning like we like to do,
and that takes us to New York City and then
nineteen thirty so I know, I proved I was really
bad at math earlier, but this is almost one hundred
years ago now. A young man named Lee Wagner got
a job at a magazine publisher where he managed subscriptions
for several titles focused on movies and celebrities, and later
(05:08):
he worked for the publisher of Look, which at the
time was one of the most read magazines in the
United States. So Wagner knew the ins and outs of
publishing at the time, and he was convinced that television,
then in its infancy, was about to be the next
big thing. So he takes this leap of faith and
he launches his own magazine. It was called The Television Guide,
(05:30):
which initially just covered programming in the New York City area,
and the first issue appeared on June fourteenth, nineteen forty eight.
The cover featured the silent film star Gloria Swanson.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's kind of funny, right, Like he's embracing this new
medium by putting a silent film star on the cover.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah. I didn't actually think about that, but that is
pretty funny, Well, Gloria had seen the writing on the wall.
She was actually trying to break in the TV by
hosting a variety show called the Gloria Swanson Hour, which
was ansel just a year after that. But the magazine
that featured her ended up being a bit more successful
than that. Of course, sales increased and he was able
(06:08):
to expand the magazine, creating these regional editions for New
England and Washington, DC, really specific to those markets.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And I'm going to pick up the thread here because
i did a little research about what happens next. So
in nineteen fifty three, Walter Annenberg, whose name you might
recognize from his foundation and the University of Southern California's
journalism school, he bought the Television Guide and folded into
his company, Triangle Publications. And his story's kind of interesting.
So in the twenties he was this rich kid playboy
(06:39):
who dated movie stars and drove fast cars, and then
the stock market crash of nineteen twenty nine happens. He
basically made a bad bet and loses a lot of
his money. So his dad pulls him into his publishing
business in Philly, where he gives them kind of this
fake job, right, He's just like signing checks and doing
as little work as possible. His dad goes to jail
(07:02):
for tax evasion and Walter has to step up, and
it turns out he's actually pretty savvy. He invests in
two things. One is in a racing journal called the
Race and Form, which is for horse betting, and he
basically realizes that people are betting on horses all over
the country, and you can make this journal for them
all across the country so that they could pay attention and
(07:23):
bet on whatever races. And the other is Television Guide,
which is kind of a similar idea where he decides
to combine all these other regional TV listing magazines. So
there's one in Chicago, there's one New York, there's one
DC And as part of this change, the name got
shortened to TV Guide and the new version appears on
(07:43):
April third, nineteen fifty three, with a cover photo of
one of the years most talked about TV stars, and
that is Desi Arnez Junior, who is just two and
a half months old at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Actually, I think I've heard about this, So they wrote
luci Oball's real life pregnancy into the plot of is live.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Lucy right, Yeah, that's right, And at the time this
was really rare. It was considered bad taste to show
or even talk about pregnancy on TV, and in fact,
CBS wouldn't let Lucy use the word pregnant on TV.
She could only say she was expecting, which is so funny.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Huge difference.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
But the storyline was a huge hit, and Lucille Ball
time the episode so that the on screen birth corresponded
with their own planned c section. This is in January
of nineteen fifty three. Now, the episode where she gives
birth became the most washed TV program up to that
point in the country.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So when TV Guide relaunched, they actually wanted to lead
with the real star of the show, which was of
course the baby.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, and it was baby Dozy's first cover appearance, so
it was huge news. In fact, Lucy and Dozi Senior
had a deal to give exclusive photos to Life and
Look magazine, the two biggest magazines of the country. But
Desi Arnez Senior agreed to meet with an editor from
TV Guide and apparently the conversation went really well. Desi
(09:00):
actually had the baby photos on his desk and when
he got up to use the restroom. He told the
editor that if you know, some of those pictures were
missing when he came back, it would be okay. So
TV Guide managed to get the scoop that way, and
today the issue is a real collector's item. Mint condition
copies have sold for as much as one thousand dollars.
Of course, Annenberg, like most other magazine owners of the time,
(09:23):
had plenty of quirks. He ran his magazine like a
fiefdom and like For instance, there was one time he
was so irritated that the Phillies had scheduled a game
at the same time as one of his charity benefits
that he kept their listings out of the magazine for
a while his punishment.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And according to a book on TV Guide's history called
Changing Channels, he also had this thing against a few celebrities.
I'm not exactly sure why, but Imagene Coca, Sammy Davis Junior,
Jajrea Gabor, and Dinnah Shore were banned from the early
TV Guide pages. That is so weird.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mean, can you imagine not liking Sammy Davis Junior
Actually a few of those celebrities for the that matter.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I know, it's really bizarre, but he definitely made
a smart play with TV Guide. People thought Annenberg was
an idiot for buying a magazine that gave out the
same TV listings that you could find in your local paper.
But he believed TV would be a centerpiece of American life.
And this was back when there were only thirty percent
of homes in the country at TVs. And he wrapped
his listings in this smart editorial package and sold in
(10:23):
grocery store checkouts, and it really worked. Apparently, Annenberg and
his editors would send a guy with the schoolyard bell
through the office hallways to ring it loudly every time
the circulation rose by an extra one hundred thousand people,
and it happened so much that the bell broke in
the early years.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So funny. All right, Well, let's talk about the magazine
changing hands and how much it actually sold for, which
is three billion dollars, Like, can you believe this? That's
the price Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Paid to acquire TV
Guides publisher Triangle Publications. This was in nineteen eighty eight.
Three billion dollars. That is actually about eight billion dollars
(11:02):
in today's money. And the Triangle portfolio included other titles
like seventeen Magazine, the Daily Racing Form, but TV Guide
was the crown jewel of all of those. Back then,
it had the largest circulation of any magazine in the
United States. It was over seventeen million readers. But media
critics and network executives had concerns about the sale, though.
(11:24):
That's because Rupert Murdoch owned the Fox Network, and people
wondered if TV Guide would start favoring Fox shows in
its coverage now. It didn't help that the week after
the acquisition, a new issue of TV Guide appeared with
a cover story about Fox's show twenty one Jump Street.
But it turned out that that story had been in
the works for months. It was all above board, Mango,
(11:45):
They've been talking about this show for a while.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That's amazing. So TV Guide didn't just cover the best
of TV. It also covered the worst, and the magazine
launched the j. Fred Muggs Award to recognize each year's
silliest gaffes and gimmicks.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And so who was j Fred Muggs? Like, was he
a real person?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
No, he was a real chimpanzee. Oh, of course this
is true. He was a regular on the Today Show
for several years in the nineteen fifties, and apparently it
was a desperate attempt to boost low ratings. But the
thing is it worked right like people tuned in ad
sales went up. Producers estimated that the stunt brought in
over one hundred million dollars, which is wow.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
All right? So who were some of the unlucky recipients
of the Jfred Muggs Award?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So there are a few doozies in there. In nineteen
eighty seven, CBS News anchor Dan Rather won the Quote
John McEnroe Cup for Petulance under Fire after he stormed
off because a US Open match was delaying the start
of his newscast.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So when the tennis match ended and stations switched back
to the news, there were six minutes of nothing. Isn't
that incredible?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That is wild.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Heraldo Rivera also won a Suckers Award for his two
hour live special The Mystery of al Capone's Faults, in
which he and a team of construction workers dug up
the basement of a Chicago hotel only to find a
few empty bottles and I kind of love this one.
In nineteen eighty six, TV Guide gave Ted Turner the
Mickey Mouse Coloring Book Award because he'd colorized famous black
(13:17):
and white movies like The Maltese Falcon.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
We love the names of these awards. Sounds well deserved.
All right, Well, Mage, I know you talked about a
nineteen ninety two fake news story at the very top here,
But it turns out TV Guide had its own fake
news scandal just a few years earlier and involved Oprah
Winfrey and a pile of money. And I'll tell you
all about it right after this break.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about
TV Guide. That's right, it's a whole episode about a
magazine of television listings. But as is so often the case,
if you look a little bit more closely, there are
some fascinating stories in there. And you know, well that's
what we love to do here, right, We dig deep
and find gems underneath the surface.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That is exactly right. And actually, if you love surprising
facts and unusual stories as much as we do, I
hope you'll subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast
app and leave us a nice rating when review It
actually really helps us out, and more importantly, it makes
Dylan very happy. Lookay, Mango, he's actually smiling.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Back there, finally smiling. Okay, well, so you left us
on a real cliffhanger before the break, fake news, Oprah Winfrey,
pile of money.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Go all right, okay, this is a good cues. All right. Well,
it was August of nineteen eighty nine and TV Guide
put Oprah on the cover. Now, the headline read Oprah
the richest woman on TV. That was question mark there
how she amassed her two hundred and fifty million dollar fortune.
So take a look at this cover, Mango, and tell
me what you see.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
On Oprah looking very glamour. She's wearing a sparkly gown
and showing a little leg and she's sitting on a
huge pile of buddy. It's eye catching. But you know,
I have to say, there's something a little off about
this image.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
There is something actually very off about this image because
it's not Oprah, well not entirely Oprah. It's Oprah's head,
but the body belongs to nineteen sixties actress and dancer
and Margaret. How weird is that, Mango?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So they photoshopped her head on someone else's body.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
No, this is nineteen eighty nine. Photoshop didn't become widely
available until nineteen ninety. Someone at TV Guide had to
physically cut these images together. This is like third grade
work on our part. So the pile of money is
also fake. In the original an Margaret photo, she's sitting
on some kind of barrel or a round table. Now,
(15:50):
TV Guide might have gotten away with his trickery, except
the guy who designed an Margaret's sparkly dress saw this cover.
He recognized his whole creation, and he alerted the media.
Oprah was, of course furious. Her spokesperson released a statement
that said quote, Oprah would not pose on a pile
of money like that, nor would she pose in that
revealing address, And Margaret's publicist said she was shocked. So
(16:13):
it's a pretty wild When it was a bona fide scandal,
people took it very seriously. The La Times wrote, here,
let me find this quote. It says the incident is
by no means trivial. It should have responsible journalists and
the entire reading public steaming mad and genuinely concerned about
the media's commitment to truth.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Now.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
The piece pointed out that images have a unique ability
to convey accurate information, like how photojournalists helped show the
reality of Vietnam. And you know, as The Times concluded,
if the public has to wonder if an image is real,
it loses its power.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's so funny, right, there's something almost like quaint about
that today.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You know, not only are so many things like photoshop,
but also with AI out there. You see all these
images of people, your celebrities and them they've got like
six fingers whatever. So here's another problem. One. Did you
know TV Guide played a role in a landmark federal
fraud case. I did not, So this is true. It
had to do with these diet pills called Regimen that
(17:15):
were heavily advertised in print and on TV from nineteen
fifty nine to nineteen sixty four. Now, the ads made
all these outlandish claims that the pills would make you
lose weight without changing your diet. The company that made
them even hired women to go on programs like The
Today Show in American Bandstand to talk about how Regimen
changed their lives. But in fact, all of these women
(17:36):
had been put on unhealthy, restrictive diets, which is what
made them lose weight, not the pills. Now, the FDA
opened an investigation. Eventually, New York State brought criminal charges
against the drug company, its president, and notably the AD
agency that helped create the campaigns. The case ended up
going to a federal jury trial, and in nineteen sixty
(17:56):
five everyone involved was found guilty. And this was actually
the first time an ad agency has ever been found
guilty of fraud for promoting a client's product.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Wow, that is actually really insane. But how was TV
Guide involved?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So attorneys for the defendants challenged the decision, and one
of their main arguments was that TV Guide had prejudiced
the jury. Shortly before the trial's conclusion, the magazine ran
a big article about the case under the headline quote
the diet pill Fraud All America Watched. It was actually
an excerpt of a forthcoming book about the weight loss industry,
and it was written by this journalist, Peter Widen, and
(18:32):
one of Widen's sources was Martin Pollner, the assistant US
attorney who prosecuted the regiment case. But the courts denied
the appeal, and that decision was careful to note that
TV Guide was not responsible for the outcome of the trial. Apparently,
jurors had followed instructions not to follow any media about
the case while it was pending. And besides, Wyden's article
relied on information that had already been made public at
(18:54):
that time. But it just goes to show that TV
guide has popped up in almost every corner of American
life over all these years.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That's really true. And actually, here's another example. So in
the nineteen eighties, teachers were encouraged to use TV Guide
in the classroom. So I found this article in an instructor
magazine that actually laid out the whole lesson plan. Teachers
were supposed to ask the kids to bring in copies
of TV Guide and use it to teach them the
hour minute format of writing time, you know, and the
(19:23):
difference between AM and PM. Of course, so after the
kids mastered that, the next step was to learn how
to read and interpret TV listings. Sample lesson questions included
and likes to watch Hollywood Squares on Thursday night. What
time does it start? And here's another one, Jan likes
to watch The Brady Bunch each weeknight at six thirty pm.
(19:44):
What channel does she watch?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's so tricky, but I got to make sense by
the times, you know, Obviously, times have changed since then,
and TV Guide has changed too, So for the first
fifty two years of its life, the magazine was digestized
about the size of the paperback book, but in two
thousand and five it switched to a larger, more standard
magazine format and reduced the amount of listings in order
(20:07):
to make room for more celebrity news. So previously the
ratio had been about seventy five percent listings twenty five
percent other stories, but with the format change, that ratio
got inverted. But perhaps the biggest change was the elimination
of the Guide's one hundred and forty regional editions. Instead,
it shranked to just one national edition with schedules marked
in either Eastern or Pacific time. Parent company Gemstars so
(20:31):
I did declining readership and ad sales, but at its
peak in the nineteen seventies, TV Guides circulation was around
twenty million, which is just unfathomable to me, especially you
and me as as people who used to run a magazine.
But by two thousand and four it dropped to nine million,
And in the past couple decades there's been a whole
maze of corporate sales, acquisitions, spin offs, and so on.
(20:53):
It would actually take a long time to go through
all of them. But since I know you're wondering, here's
where things stand today. TV Guides still exists. Its website,
additional properties are owned by the fan engagement platform Fandom,
and the print magazine is owned by a Michigan based
publisher called NTVD Media. That is wild.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I'm just thinking back about that staff that you said
that there were one hundred and forty regional editions at
one point. That was pretty wild. But you know, even
though we're up to our eyeballs and premium channels and
streaming services and of course video on demand, you can
still pick up a print copy of TV Guide. There's
something nice about the.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Child and maybe all those things you sid died are
the reason you should because, as the twenty twenty four
TV Guide Media Kit puts it, quote, there's more TV
than ever, so there's never been more of a need
for guidance.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I mean, they're not wrong. If mammal are still around,
I'm pretty sure there'd be one on our coffee table.
But you know mego for that and the fact that
this whole episode was your idea, I'm going to give
you today's Trophy. Congrats.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, I'm so honored and thanks to TV Guidance Council
for the inspiration and for having me on the show.
We will be back next week with a brand new episode,
but in the meantime, please be sure to follow us
on Instagram at part Time Genius and from Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Will and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part
(22:26):
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me mongas Heartikuler
and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
episode was engineered and produced by the Wonderful of Dylan
Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with
(22:49):
social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Us, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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